diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci-actions-incremental.yml b/.github/workflows/ci-actions-incremental.yml
index 0b5889fbcb0c3..a141bc27e384b 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci-actions-incremental.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci-actions-incremental.yml
@@ -174,6 +174,8 @@ jobs:
           restore-keys: |
             develocity-cache-Initial JDK 17 Build-${{ github.event.pull_request.number }}-
       - name: Populate the cache
+        # only populate the cache if it's not a pull request as we only store the cache in this case
+        if: github.event_name != 'pull_request'
         run: |
           ./mvnw -T2C $COMMON_MAVEN_ARGS dependency:go-offline
       - name: Verify native-tests.json